Twelve Ways The Media Misrepresents Violence

Where do the media go wrong in dealing with violence?
This round-up gives us a start in understanding.

Norwegian peace studies professor
Johann Galtung has laid out 12 points of concern were journalism often goes
wrong when dealing with violence. Each implicitly suggests more explicit
remedies.

1. Decontextualizing violence: focussing on the
irrational without looking at the reasons for unresolved conflicts an dpolarization.

2. Dualism: reducing the number of parties in a
conflict to two, when often more are involved. Stories that just focus on
internal developments often ignore such outside or `external` forces as foreign
governments and transnational companies.

3. Manicheanism: portraying one side as good and
demonizing the other as `evil`.

12. Omitting reconciliation: conflicts tend to re-emerge if attention is not
paid to efforts to heal fractured societies. When news about attempts to
resolve conflicts are absent, fatalism is reinforced. That can help engender
even more violence, when people have no images or information about possible
peaceful outcomes and the promise of healing.

The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.